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A session from 2007. The gallery appeared in my inbox as a reminder that the images still lived here online and not to forget they were there. After hours of browsing the images from 2007, I cringed about a couple of things. I think I gave my clients every image I ever took during our sessions instead of curating the very best ones. I think I also uploaded them straight from the camera...without a thought of an edit of anything more than a b+w conversion. What doesn't make me cringe is that these images, no matter how many there were, or how poorly they were edited, froze time, just this one day in their life. Ten years later, we yearn for these days. We have all grown. And with that, I will be adding a new series called Yearn, featuring curated and re-edited images from the beginning days of my business.

After watching the local high school's annual performance of Rock and Roll Revival, and seeing one of my subjects up there on stage, I had to post a "I knew him when…" Meet C.Max. An amazing performer and athlete and even better than all of that, he is kind AND smart! The whole package! And it doesn't stop there…yup, he has a brother. Adorable, witty, charming Gus. With many of the same qualities and a force to be reckoned with on the soccer fields. Their sessions are always an adventure and I am happy to say "I knew them when"…here is a glimpse from 2009...

Over a year ago, I updated my blog from Wordpress to Squarespace. In the process of transferring all of my work, I somehow ended up losing all of my blog entries since 2007. Since 2007. Ugh. So. Hard. To. Say. Carefully curated moments in time, both in words and images. Gone.

Although my posts were far and few between, it was a running record of my personal life as well as my professional work. I still have hope that the content still lives somewhere out in the ginormous world wide web and someone will be able to find it for me, but in the meantime I am grateful for the theme of #tbt, otherwise known as Throwback Thursday. You see, with this theme, I can bring back some of my favorite shoots from the past. They may not be my original blog posts, but at least I still have photographs stored in safe places to retrieve. Moments in time. Captured. And now valued even more knowing how easily things can be lost.

To start this series, I chose the Melendez family. They were one of the first families who hired me after moving to Maryland and I loved their free spirit…four kids, kind, energetic and happy, with awesome parents. I remember thinking I hoped to be just like their mom. She was so relaxed, attentive and fun.

The day of the shoot was the hottest day of the summer and it was back when "people piles" were my favorite pose. I am sure those kids loved me when I told them to place their sweaty hot bodies on top of each other for a picture, and as polite as ever, they obliged. Since then, my candid style has remained the same, however people piles are no longer in my bag of tricks.

The session ended with a hose and kiddie pool. Fun. Energetic. Happy. Meet the Melendez family, sometime in the summer of 2005.

I hope to continue this series throughout the year…maybe you will see a familiar face here and there…a distant memory brought back to light...I hope you can follow along. And remember, print and backup your moments.

these are my thoughts. my family. and my clients. please do not use my images without my written permission. all content is copyright and owned by lee kriel and lkphotography unless stated otherwise. thank you for being considerate.